Fracture Points
by ArtisticAbandon
Summary: A debriefing is a debriefing until its an interrogation. Or, the story about how to break and still stay whole. (Written for the LJ Sheppard HC Community 2013 Winter Fic Exchange, for stellapegasi)
1. Stress

Summary: A debriefing is a debriefing until its an interrogation. Or, the story about how to break and still stay whole.

Warning: Somewhat graphic whump, and allusions to such.

Notes: I was asked for slice of life, team, Cam, and lots of whump as part of a fic exchange. I hope this suffices. Full prompt(s) at end of fic, because, well, spoilers. Also a bit more rushed than I usually like, because well, deadlines. And a totally chaotic RL.

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* * *

><p><strong><em>FRACTURE POINTS<em>**

**_Part 1: Stress_  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>ELSEWHERE<strong>

They watched from behind the safety of monitors linked to a hidden camera (because one-way glass was so _old-fashioned_, not to mention obvious) as the two men settled in the SGC interrogation room for what was ostensibly a debriefing.

"You do realize we'll crucify him if this turns out like we expect," one of them said.

"I know," the other simply replied, and turned to the monitor to watch.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

The file hit the table with a thump that may or may not have been intended. Dramatic, yeah. But then, it was a big file. Accidents happened.

Colonel Cam Mitchell settled himself at the table and casually pushed the file across. He'd already read it. Cover to cover. Twice. And his...colleague (because victim was so...bleak a word) had lived it and had the visible proof for it. So, yeah. He really didn't see the point of going through the bother of opening the file.

"So," Mitchell said, for want of a better opener. "Got anything to add to that?"

Colonel Sheppard sighed and nudged the file back across the table. "I guess 'no comment' isn't going to fly this time, is it?"

Cam grinned, because he remembered the time Sheppard had said just that. (And survived that inquiry with career intact.) "Nope."

"Right." Sheppard pinched his nose. "MKR-389."

"MKR-389."

"Out of curiosity, who came up with that crazy naming scheme, anyway?"

"No idea, kind of before my time, and you're dodging the subject. MKR-389."

"Right." Sheppard let out a breath. "Well, to put it in context, and I'll go on record from here on, is that we make mistakes."

Cam stiffened in his chair. "You sure about that?" _Was he really going to open with _that_, in _this_ political climate?_ He _did_ know that the Powers That Be wanted Cam to make this more of an interrogation than a debriefing, didn't he? (Not that Cam had the stomach for that anymore, now that he'd read the file.) (Twice.) (And thrown up. Multiple times. Because those pictures left _nothing_ to the imagination.)

"Yeah. You see, despite what people think, we're not infallible..."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

It's a sad but true fact that, contrary to popular belief, we're not infallible. No one is. And especially not in the SGC.

We miss things.

We're, well, _human_. Or near enough to it.

Usually, the things we miss are things that'll come back to bite us. That's why we travel in a team of four. The hope is that what one of us misses, one of the others will pick up. It works, for the most part. That's why I like working with Teyla, Rodney, and Ronon. They'll pick up what I miss. (And if nothing else, they make me look good.)

But then there are the missions...where we miss things. Where we _all_ miss things. Its even worse when we all miss the _same damn thing_.

Because it only ever takes one thing for a mission to go to hell.

MKR-389 was a case in point.

We first heard about it from an ally at one of the huge trading markets, that a culling meant they needed help with the harvest. It was the usual thing. Heard the rumor first, not the name, took a while to actually get the address so we could do the follow-up. It takes longer than I'd like, but for obvious reasons; planetary addresses are guarded more jealously than gold in Pegasus.

Not that I'm complaining. We don't exactly give out ours, either.

Turned out the system had two gates. Orbital and planetary. It happened sometimes. I decided we'd take the orbital. I wanted a jumper handy, just in case. (Yeah. Okay. I admit it. I had a bad feeling about this one, but it was on the books already, so off we went.)

So. Travel to MKR-389 by jumper was rather uneventful, which by itself is a misnomer. Nothing good ever comes from orbital gates. (Rodney even wrote a report to that effect: _Why the Ancients Hid Their Mistakes on Planets with Orbiting Gates, by Rodney McKay._ As a personal note, I think the title says it all.) (And having read the report, I think he understated things.) Truthfully, I didn't expect this one to be much different.

Well, uneventful except for a minor disagreement about upcoming leave. (Make a note. Never get between an engineer and his plans for the upcoming Geeks Vs Goons Prank War. Or if you do, confiscate his water pistol first.) Which lead to a subsequent discussion about contraband. (A _water pistol_. On _my_ jumper. So I confiscated it.) Said discussion being more like an argument than a discussion, but that's Rodney. (Only Rodney would complain for the rest of the trip to the planet about the confiscation, not the fact that he had it in the first place.)

So. Eventually, we found a place to land.

It took me a while. Unfamiliar terrain, unfamiliar civilian population with unfamiliar territory boundaries, at an uncertain stage of development, well, you get the idea. I chose my spot carefully, well away from civilization. You know, SOP kind of thing.

The fact that we _always_ park so far away didn't deter Rodney from complaining. I kind of looked forward to it though. It's part of the routine. If he doesn't do it, if there's no complaint about where we park, well, I look for a problem with how I've done it. It's how we work. Like I said, he keeps me on my toes.

And, really, the most mundane part of the whole mission was the walk to the settlement I'd spotted on the jumper's HUD. Tree. Meadow. Tree. Meadow. Meadow. Some traces of livestock. Lots of open space. Rodney alternated between muttered complaints and updates on the scanner's readings, Teyla told me what she knew about the people of MKR-389 (which wasn't that much), and Ronon and I stayed on point. The usual.

And we saw nothing to tell us this was going to be anything other than a run-of-the-mill mission. It seemed the usual approach to the usual nomadic village. A few some-what permanent structures, but it had all the hallmarks of the people being able to flee quickly. A few scorch marks, but nothing unusual.

I keep saying that, don't I? It was true. It was...an average village, as far as Pegasus villages go. I admit that as much as I expect the worst from everyone, I didn't expect much from this one.

Perhaps, in hindsight, that was my mistake. I got lulled by the village's _averageness_. I know it caught me off guard when it all went to hell later.

Anyway, we were quickly met by a delegation of four.

I'll admit that I relaxed a little when we did the introduction ritual thing. You know, the old "I am so-and-so, son of this and that", and so forth. In Pegasus, it means a few important things. Who goes first is the one responsible for those they introduce, and it's a way of keeping track of people. Because of the Wraith. The anthropologists say it's like a galaxy-wide social network, except it's all verbal and visual memory. (So they keep asking for first contact missions so they can study it in action.) (And I keep saying no because 'seeing it in action' is a half-step short of a Wraith cocoon, and no scientist needs to see that.)

Really, it's just another Pegasus thing.

Turned out we were talking to the government of MKR-389. Or the Lao'tians, as I found out they called themselves. (It's pronounced _Lay-oh-tea-hans_, by the way. I only know how it's spelled because I saw it on some of their buildings in the standard Pegasus script.)

The title of their boss was Big Costar, which I thought had some irony, because he didn't seem one for sharing his glory, on reflection. His actual name translates as La'Tia (_Lah'tee-ah_). He had his three deputies (hangers-on) with him, introduced them, and then never let them talk again.

They took us into one of their few somewhat permanent structures to do the negotiating. Kinda like a hall, but a bit more tentlike. Like a, I don't know, 'tent of meeting', I guess.

Still, unlike most people in Pegasus, the Lao'tians weren't exactly backward in coming forward. They made their desires clear pretty quickly. It seemed like it was going to be a standard harvest thing. Bodies on the ground in exchange for produce. Which I was more than happy to provide, since I've got bored Marines to entertain.

Which pretty much meant that this was going to be a trade negotiation. So I stepped back and beckoned Teyla forward.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam cleared his throat, interrupting Sheppard's flow.

"Huh, I'm sorry, what?" He looked up from where he'd settled on staring at the tabletop.

"Uh, Sheppard, can I clarify something?"

Sheppard shifted in his seat, trying to pull his brain away from the epic information dump. And what better way than noticing exactly how stiff he was getting sitting in the generic government chair. It was a good way to ground his brain back in the here and now, instead of...before. "Sure. I guess. What do you need?" Need, not want. Because he had no illusions which side of the table held the power here, and it definitely wasn't on his side.

"Why'd you pick Teyla to negotiate?"

_Really, _this_ is what they pick? Out of everything that went wrong...they pick on _this_?_ "Because she speaks the Pegasus Trade Language best out of all of us," he replied matter-of-factly.

"How so?"

"She's spoken it since, like, forever, but most importantly, before she went through a gate. The rest of us learned it after gate travel, including Ronon. It's really hard to learn a language when the gate translates for you."

Cam's forehead crunched as he processed this. (Or tried to.) _They don't need linguists?_ "The gate...translates..."

Sheppard sighed. If he had a dollar for every time he'd held this exact conversation with someone from the Milky Way, he'd be rich right now. "Just...it's a Pegasus thing. Trust me. I'll explain as I go along. Now, where was I..."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

Teyla stepped forward, as confident as I've ever seen her.

Which was when it all started to go to hell. Not that we knew that at the time, of course. That came later, when it was already too late to stop it. Because _we missed it_. We all did.

To be fair, at the time, when I let Teyla step forward, I did notice someone leave the hall we were in. But I didn't pay much attention. The way we do these things is I pay attention to the negotiations, kind of as Teyla's backup and witness, Rodney handles energy readings, and Ronon takes lookout and intimidation. So while I saw someone leave, I trusted Ronon to tell me if it was important.

Turned out we were all focused on what was in front of us: the harvest negotiation. Which for once seemed to be going smoothly. No hoops to jump through, no rituals to go through, nothing. (Which in hindsight should have been enough of a clue in itself.) I guess it was unusual enough that we all took notice.

Believe it or not, the trades we negotiate are a win-win for all sides. The planet we negotiate with gets their crop taken in quickly (because in Pegasus, speed is of the essence), and I get to occupy which ever Marine company has that day off in the rotation. And there's a standing challenge on Atlantis (that I'm not supposed to know about) to see who can bring in the most in a harvest in the one day. So, win win.

So, long story short, that's what we missed. We missed their reaction to Teyla being the primary negotiator. Turned out they had some sort of taboo about women taking the lead. Or at least, one side did.

But even though we missed _that_, it was hard to miss what happened next.

We were all caught off guard. Lao'tians. Us. Guards. Spectators. Everyone.

It was only a small team that took the 'tent of meeting'. But then, that was all they needed, because there was only two exits, we had only one man on lookout, and I'm pretty sure they had sympathizers amongst the guard. No one gives up the fight _that easily_.

I've thought about it a bit, over the last few days (enforced bed rest will do that), and that's the only explanation I can come up with, for why only half the guards resisted and the other half just, well, capitulated. Just laid down their weapons and gave up. Just like that.

The sympathizers thing probably explains how the rebel faction (we didn't know that at the time, but that was what we were dealing with) got so close to La'tia. Typical of the way the day was going, the intruders got close enough to take him hostage.

So of course it's a stand-off, half the guards surrendered, the other half weapons drawn, just like me and Ronon. Me, I'm betting on my P90 and Ronon's blaster against their ceremonial spears, but I wasn't exactly about to broadcast it.

Then, of course, there was a knife against La'tia's throat, and things just went a bit more...interesting.

"Okay, okay," I said, "how about we all just calm down." I laid my gun down to emphasize it, knowing Ronon would keep his at the ready.

You know, it's funny, how some things stick out in your memory, but other things are kind of vague?

The next thing I remember hearing was this weird kind of choking-gurgling sound behind me. You know, the noise someone makes when they're startled by a sudden pain and the blood bubbles in their throat because all of a sudden they're internally bleeding. That kind of noise. And it was coming from someone in my team.

Rodney. It was coming from Rodney.

Rodney. Chief geek and a member of my team. Someone under my _direct_ protection.

To say I was unhappy was an understatement.

I turned just enough to see that one of the new guys had come up behind us and stuck a knife in Rodney's side while we were all distracted. Part of my brain started listing all the complications from that angle and location depending on the blade used (muscle, lung, stomach, liver, spleen, kidney, it just goes on...) while the rest of me calculated how to get out of this.

I smiled grimly. I could see only one way out of this, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. "Let them go. Take me instead."

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam stared at Sheppard. "You asked them to take you hostage. _Knowing_ what would probably happen."

Sheppard shrugged (actually, it was the vague approximation of one). "SOP in Pegasus. Geeks rule. All lives matter. And my personal one: don't come home if you can't get the geek - or civilian - home as well."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

As soon as I said the words, I could feel everyone's eyes on me, and not just those of my team.

One of the intruders spoke up, who I decided to call Leader until I learned different. "Why?" he asked suspiciously.

_Oh God. Are they all this terminally stupid or is it just him?_ Did I _really_ have to spell it out? Question of the hour: how to do so without losing our newly formed trade alliance and insulting the Lao'tians. For this, I didn't dare look at Teyla or Ronon. (Mostly because I knew they'd both be giving me The Stinkeye and I didn't need the distraction.) "How shall I put it... We're the ones who approached the Lao'tians, not the other way around, so logically we hold the position of power here."

Leader stared at me. "Which means you're more powerful."

And have more powerful tech to track me down when this goes south. "Which means you'll have more bargaining power if you take the most powerful person in this situation." I could see him wavering so I added the clincher. "Besides, if you want anything out of my people, you're going to have to talk to me at some stage."

Leader narrowed his eyes. "You the Big Costar for your people?"

"Something like that, yeah."

Leader nodded, short and sharp. "Take him."

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam dropped his pen in surprise. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

I had enough time to send a quick message to Teyla and Ronon, to tell them to get Rodney back to Atlantis ASAP. I'd either follow when I could or they should follow me. We'd been through this kind of thing enough times, a team member left behind and another injured, that all knew what to do.

* * *

><p>I saw them get Rodney out the door, and that was it. Same with La'tia. I saw the intruders let him go...and that was it, too. The hood they slung over the head was pretty effective for cutting off anything else I might have seen.<p>

I'm pretty sure I got to the outside of the tent-of-meeting thing, judging by the sounds, before they hit me hard enough to put my lights out, but that could just be mixed-up memory from before. In any case, I was unconscious when they took me to their 'secret hideout', so I never really knew where it was except from reading the reports after the fact.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam nodded, as if that confirmed something for him. Which it did, in a way. He knew Sheppard well enough to know his sense of direction was better than he usually let on. "I'm going to ask something before we continue."

"Shoot."

"Your injuries," he asked, gesturing at the bandages and casts, "did they come from the escape or otherwise?" He really hoped for the former, because otherwise there was another planet that was going on his mental list of Planets I'd Like To Nuke To Bare Metal.

"There was no escape," Sheppard said flatly. "I was rescued. These...came while I was a hostage."

* * *

><p>###<p>

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_**END PART 1**_


	2. Hairline

Chp. Summary: "aggressive negotiations..."

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><p><em><strong>FRACTURE POINTS<strong>_

_**Part 2: Hairline  
><strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

Actually, _does_ it classify as being taken hostage when it's kind of with your consent? I say 'kind of', because there was really no other option. There was only me, the "Big Costar," and Rodney. The Costar dude was...way too much a civilian, Rodney had been injured, and then there was me, the only one of us with any kind of...official training to get through this kind of situation. Not that training amounts for everything in this kind of thing.

But it helps.

It helps.

So. I woke up (or should I say that I was awakened) in the rebel's hideout, courtesy of the removal of the bag over my head and a rather unfriendly cuff to the head.

Judging by the effort it took me to focus on anything and the throbbing of my head, it was immediately clear that I was starting off with a concussion of some level. I didn't have much faith that I'd be able to keep it at the level it was, given that these people seemed to have an attraction for hitting my head.

I think, at that stage, I was up to two head hits. (In these kind of situations, I like to count hits.) (If nothing else, it keeps me occupied.)

With the vision problems, I couldn't see everything. Not at first. I could only see what was directly in front of me, and that took more effort than I cared to admit. What I saw was a person-shaped blur. I could just see well enough to pick out information like brown hair, overall build, colors, limbs, not enough to pick out details like eye color, mouth shape, that sort of thing. Really disconcerting when, as a pilot, I'm used to my vision being somewhat better than average.

The rest of the room was more a big fuzzy blur than anything. Add to that the usual symptoms - pain (which I've already mentioned), halos around lights, light sensitivity, dizziness, and so on - and I could tell that we were in for a real _interesting_ time. (As if being tied to the chair wasn't enough of a clue.) (My hands and feet were tied together, and then I was tied to the chair at chest, thigh, and shin level.)

So, no. When I first woke up, I had no real idea who was in the room. I mean, for all I knew, I could have been looking at the _maid_.

It was only when the guy in front of me started speaking that I realized my life was about to go from In Trouble, down to Deeply Screwed. (There are, of course, far more levels of FUBAR-ed-ness you can get to.) (For the record, I think this mission found quite a few of them all by itself.)

"Let me introduce ourselves," he said with a lot of pretentiousness, gesturing grandly. "I am A'tar, the leader of the Ahm'lin. We were a peaceful people, in times past, but now we oppose the Lao."

I squinted. _Is he really puffing out his chest, or am I hallucinating that?_ "Do you mean oppose as in differing-views, or oppose as in fight-against?" I made sure I slurred the words a little, playing up the concussion thing. Generally speaking, in a hostage situation it was always a good idea to work on the injured angle, at least at the beginning. Either you'd get sympathy and they'd stop hitting you, or it wouldn't work and you'd try for the 'miraculous recovery'.

And I could feel the confusion from here. "Uh...is there a difference?"

Right. Well, maybe not in his brain. Was it too late to give these people a crash course in diplomacy? Probably. "From where I'm sitting, not really," I admitted with a sigh. "Why am I _here_, anyway?"

"You mean no one's told you?" he asked me, sounding incredulous, and deflating just a little.

"No."

"We saw you consorting with them Lao's," he snarled, getting up to pace in front of me. (And, _wow_, but wasn't _that_ a sudden change of mood.)

Now, normally, I just love it when the 'bad guys' confess to their bad deeds in front of you. If I was a cop, I'd be dancing right now. But I'm not, so...not so much, and that mood swing was disconcertingly sudden. Still, it was confirmation that the negotiations had been compromised from the beginning. I coughed, cleared my throat, and went for a little tried-and-true bad-guy-baiting. "Actually, I don't think _consorting_ is the right-"

"_Shut up!_" he whirled and yelled at me, right in the face, and followed up with a slap to my cheek. Hard. (Yeah. So much for the whole peaceful schtick.) (Also, the injured angle was _so_ not going to work, which I'd pretty much guessed anyway.)

He turned away from me again and promptly started pontificating about how bad the 'Lao' were. He was a like a broken record with one track. What's worse, he was just getting warmed up and I literally had the front-row seat.

* * *

><p><strong>ELSEWHERE<strong>

"What do you think? Crazy?"

"Yep."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

To be perfectly honest, right then I didn't care about all that drivel he was shouting at me. "You hurt one of my team," I interrupted him, my voice undercutting his. It was something I thought he should know. Like, it was something I'd inscribe on his tombstone after dancing on his ashes. I was just doing him the courtesy of informing him about my future plans, that sort of thing.

And of course he didn't get it. "-the Lao..." In any other situation, the double-take would be comical. "I'm sorry...What?"

"His name's Rodney," I informed him, keeping my voice to a low growl. "One of your men stuck a knife in his side." I spared him the gory details.

He glared at me, probably as much for the interruption as for the accusation. "We are peaceful rebels," he repeated. "If someone gets hurt, it's not my intention."

Let me point out that by then, I already had a few bruises from their rough handling, so I wasn't all that inclined to believe him. It was pretty clear that I was dealing with people for whom gentleness and sanctity of life was a foreign concept - especially for people they considered inferior or at their mercy. Considering that at the moment I pretty much fit that bill in their eyes, it didn't bode well for my future good health.

(As a side point, I've found in general that people have two reactions to the Wraith: they treat all life as sacred and do all they can to treasure every moment; or they think life is going to end soon anyway so it doesn't matter what they do. In hindsight, we were incredibly lucky that the first people we met in Pegasus were of the former persuasion. Also, it was pretty clear that these...Ahm'lin were thinking along the latter lines.)

I (carefully) rolled my eyes. "Lemme guess. If someone gets hurt, it's all the Lao'tian's fault."

"That's right." He smiled at me, as if he was pleased with my deduction. "How'd you know?"

"Just a guess," I replied lazily. Really, though, it wasn't a guess, but more fitting him to a profile. And I didn't much like the picture I was getting. (Crazy as a nut fanatic that also happened to be the leader of a cult that had taken me hostage. Yay.)

"Then you must _know_ how serious our cause is," he told me earnestly, his eyes alight with the power of his own fervor. Either that, or they were lit by the strength of his craziness. My money was on the crazy, because seriously? This guy was utter nuts. Problem was that he'd dragged people along with him, and I was the collateral damage. (Because in my experience, crazies either imploded on themselves or exploded and took everyone out with them, and one thing this guy wasn't doing was imploding.)

"How about we pretend I'm new here and I have no idea?" I suggested, not really expecting it to work. But then, in this kind of situation, you try all sorts of things, because what have you got to lose?

Surprisingly enough, it worked.

He told me. Well, his version of it, anyway, so take that for what it's worth. (I did say he was crazy, didn't I?)

I'll save you his...drivel and tell you the gist of what he said.

Basically the Lao have been ruling over the planet for as long as they knew, according to their oral history, (which stretched back at least at least five generations, near as I could figure, but I wasn't much for asking questions). It was fairly peaceful, as far as things go. It was the usual thing of a civilization struggling to survive with a Wraith culling here and there. They were lucky, I think. They'd only had two in all their history.

Which...was actually sort of the problem. The last culling was only ten years ago, by our time. So, reasonably close to Sateda's extinction-level event, but not quite on that level, though the aftermath might as well have been. The culling wiped out most of the ruling caste, so La'Tia appointed himself the leader, or the Big Costar I think he called it. And like most self-appointed rulers, he's more despot and tyrant than benevolent.

Enter the Ahm'lin, or should I say A'tar. He decided to oppose the Lao and formed what amounts to the opposition, but it's really more like a sub-standard guerrilla force that has grandiose ideas of being something more. Bombs, protests, militia, spies, that sort of thing. All designed to return things to go back to what they were like before the culling (no doubt with him at the head of the government, but that's neither here nor there).

The fact that we then came along to negotiate with the Lao'tian, without considering the Ahm'lin, was the height of insult to them. The fact that I, as the leader, stepped back and let another take other, mimicking their own internal strife, well...that just added insult to injury.

So.

Reading between the lines and with the benefit of hindsight, I know now that the scorch marks on the Lao'tian's buildings were not actually Wraith in origin but were more likely from fending off the Ahm'lin's attacks. And the reason why the negotiations were handled so quickly and with so little fanfare was because they wanted to get us out of there before the Ahm'lin noticed them. Which ultimately failed, but through no fault of their own. They weren't to know that the Ahm'lin already had a spy in their, uh, 'tent of meeting', I think I called it.

So the fact that we got Teyla to negotiate, as per our own SOP, was just the icing on an already explosive cake.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

"So, it really was Teyla?"

"Teyla," he nodded. "At least, that was his _excuse_, anyway. I think it would've happened regardless. He was crazy as all hell."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

"So," he told me, "now you know how _vital_ our cause is."

_Our_ cause? In no way, shape, or form did I believe him. I believed he was nuts, but that was about it. "Yeah, I guess," I replied, as non-committal as I could make it.

He smiled at me, or at least I think he did, all shark teeth smile. "Then you must tell me everything you know about the Lao's plan to destroy us!"

"Destroy you?" I queried, as confused a look as I could paste on my face. Because really, this was the first I'd heard about this or anything that remotely sounded like this.

"Yes! They plan to _destroy_ us because they _know_ what a threat we are to them!"

"Oh. Well then no. I don't know anything about that." Which was so true. I didn't. We'd come to their stupid planet to help them with a harvest, not to solve a civil war or take sides, no matter what it may have looked like to the people.

So he asked me again.

I said no. Again.

We went back and forth a few times, and he got increasingly...upset. Yeah. That's the word I'll use for it. Upset. He didn't like my answers, so we moved on to the aggressive negotiation stage.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

"Aggressive negotiations?"

"Yeah. He started hitting me before and after every question."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

And actually, I think it was about that point that I got hit on the head (number three) again...or maybe I hit something dodging him...

Whatever. I don't know. The memory gets a little fuzzy about that point.

I _think_ I was unconscious for a while. I still don't know how long for. (That's got the docs all up in a tizz, by the way. Not the unconscious bit, but the fact that I don't know for how long.) (Well, I'd know how long if I hadn't been tied up and unable to see my watch...)

All I know is that I woke up to shouting. His shouting, not mine.

I did say stuff back, for the record. I don't remember what it was anymore, but I have the feeling it wasn't very coherent. Or very nice, judging by the look on his face. I don't think it met with his approval, in any case.

He just snarled and threw me back in the chair. (Which hurt, by the way.) (So, I'm pretty sure he hit me while I was 'out', either to wake me up or just because that's the kind of guy he was.)

"Take him down below," he said and walked away. It was the last I saw him.

So, there you have it. Their leader didn't actually do the damage. He had his...underlings for that. Plausible deniability at its finest.

That's also when I found out it wasn't just him and me in the room. There were also two heavies at the door. Well, they _were_ at the door. They left their post when the leader left the room, and walked towards me enough to enter my field of view. I knew from the two new blurs and the footsteps that these were big men. Heavy. Strong. They were the ones who untied me and took me down by carrying me over a shoulder, still bound hand and foot.

'Down below' turned out to be their cells. (Peaceful rebels, my foot. Peaceful people don't have _cells_.) Actually, it was more an interrogation room than a cell. Single light, hooks for tying up people to, and one chair. (Three guesses for who got tied to the chair, and the first two don't count.) The rebel's version of an _interrogation room_ was also small, dark, and from what I could see of it, rather dingy. To be honest, I didn't much care for it. But then, I'm pretty sure that as a prisoner, my opinion didn't much matter. Beggars can't be choosers, right? Well, same went for prisoners too. Decor, restraints, fellow prisoners, whatever.

Actually, as a side point, the best restraint systems I've ever encountered are all in Pegasus. I guess when people focus on restraining the strength of a Wraith and then apply it to a human, well, the results speak for themselves. I certainly couldn't move. (Because believe me, I tried.) I remember looking at the chair and immediately thinking Rodney would be in heaven. (Second thought: They better not have killed him.) The chair's restraints worked on some kind of pulley and weight system. The more I struggled, the more I moved, the tighter things got. So I quickly learned not to move, no matter what.

Which meant that things got very interesting very quickly. (Have you ever tried not to even _flinch_ during a torture session?)

I knew I was definitely In Trouble when the two heavies that were with me skipped the whole introduction ritual thing and instead got right down to business. The interrogation business. They kept on asking if I knew anything about the Lao'tian's plan to destroy them, which of course I didn't. I'd probably only been on their stupid planet twelve freaking hours.

So when bruises didn't work, they moved rather rapidly onto more...more permanent damage. And by that, I mean the breaking bones part.

I'd just like to say here that having your arm broken for you hurts like hell. It's not so much the pain of the break, as it is knowing it's coming _and being unable to stop it_ because you dare not move. I think that was the worst part, the whole mental aspect.

But that was the point, wasn't it? They _wanted_ to break me.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam looked up from his note pad where he'd diligently been taking notes in his chicken-scratch scrawl. "I thought you couldn't move."

"I couldn't."

"So how did they do it?"

"Just because _I_ couldn't move didn't mean they couldn't, well, move me for me." He shrugged. "They held my arm out and applied the appropriate force."

"Right," Cam coughed, his face blanching. Sometimes, his imagination was far too active. "So...did they succeed with..." - God, there _had_ to be a more delicate way to ask this - "uh, breaking you?"

Sheppard just smiled. It was a tired smile, the smile of a man that knew what was coming and was going to say it anyway. Better that than relieving it every night if he stopped now. "Not with the arm. But then, it just gets better from there."

* * *

><p>###<p>

###

**END PART 2**


	3. Crack

Chp. Summary: They _wanted_ him to break.

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* * *

><p><em><strong>FRACTURE POINTS<strong>_

_**Part 3: Crack  
><strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

They _wanted_ me to break. So (if I didn't want to die or go through more pain than was really necessary, and I'm kind of allergic to that sort of thing) I had to show them what they wanted, didn't I?

Which meant I had to break, but do it on my terms. Which is not as easy as it sounds.

The thing is, all the SERE courses I ever did were great for teaching me me _how_ to break, but weren't so great about what to do afterwards in terms of reassembling the whole. Or in teaching me the whole timing thing, which was what I needed here. It was _Pegasus_ that taught me how to choose when and where to break, if I could say such a thing, so there'd be something left of me at the end to put back together.

MKR-389 was no different. I knew I was going to break. I'd suspected that going in. The problem was choosing when.

It had to look natural. (Which probably wouldn't be a problem, if they kept on breaking bones.) I had to get the timing right. Wait too long, and I'd end up with no resources to make it back - I'd be too injured for it to work. Do it too early, though, and it would be kind of obvious I was faking it. If I did it right, I'd break just enough to give them a show, and keep enough of myself intact that I could still do what I needed to do.

In any case, the moment I was looking for arrived sooner than I'd ever expected.

Let me just preface what comes next by re-emphasizing that while I knew I had to give them a show, it also had to be _real_. And, I knew it would it come when they...broke something...,more. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I knew I'd be giving them what they wanted when they crossed some invisible line, and I'd only know what that was when I got there.

I just...never expected that line to arrive so quickly.

I guess it's fortunate in some ways that it happened this way. It meant I got out of there with relatively few injuries, besides the obvious. To be honest, I was expecting more.

Am I rambling? It feels like I'm rambling.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam looked at Sheppard, taking in the pale face (that was getting steadily paler) and the way he kept rubbing at his forehead. "I'm not supposed to do this, but...do you want something?"

Oh, did he. The list was about as long as his arm and growing. But should he say yes (tell the truth) and admit to a possible weakness (chink in his armor), or say no (tell a lie) and give them nothing (and keel over anyway)? Yeah. Not much a choice. He shook his head. "Nah. I'm fine."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

Where was I again?

Oh. Yeah. That's right.

So. What basically happened is that they kicked my knee out.

I'm pretty sure that they wanted to break my knee, but the idiots totally overestimated the force required and managed to dislocate it instead. (Because apparently any idiot can break a bone but it takes a special kind of stupid to dislocate it.) For the record, I kind of wish that they'd only broken it. It would've been kinder. Like, only a 5 on my annoyance (pain) scale instead of an 8.

I knew straight away that I was in trouble. That was the first thing that crossed my mind. As if the misshapen look, swelling, throbbing, and stabbing _pain_ weren't enough of a clue. The second worry I had was how this would affect my career, but I decided I'd worry about that after I got out. Third, it was pretty clear that my mobility was now about zero. Also, which I guess makes this point four, I knew I was stupid for not trying any of my escape plans earlier, regardless of the risk for collateral damage. And finally point five, I-

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

"What is it _this_ time?" Sheppard growled, irritated at yet another interruption.

"You mean to say you'd had a plan to escape?"

"Well, _yeah_. Wouldn't you have had one?"

"...Point."

He shifted in the chair, as much from unease as from pain. Although, if this kept up much longer he was asking for pain-pills and damning the consequences to hell. (Stupid generic government chair.) "I actually had about seven. Five of them even had no casualties. But pretty much all of them required getting through at least one interrogation session reasonably intact so I could make nice with the guards. Which didn't happen, so here we are."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

And _five_, I was dealing with idiots who didn't know how to measure their strength. (But that's par for the course. Only _idiots_ get into the torturing game, in my opinion.)

So, basically, I was screwed. Unless, six, I could talk said idiots into releasing me themselves.

Yeah, like _that_ was going to happen.

Besides, at the time I was more concerned with dealing with the pain than trying to do anything fancy. It's amazing what a little (or a lot) of pain and adrenaline can do. I went from being immobile for all practical purposes to sitting curled over as much as I could, struggling to breathe through it. It was probably only stubbornness that kept me awake and conscious, because it was a near thing.

In hindsight, I should've just...let go. It would've been easier for everyone.

It's certainly what they expected.

Instead, I gave them a glimpse of exactly how stubborn I can be and how high my pain tolerance is. Neither of which are bad things in themselves, but together, in a hostage situation, when _I_ am the one being the hostage...it makes for unpleasant times. Because people make the mistake of thinking that a high pain tolerance mean you don't feel it and so they go harder on you. But you _do_ feel it. (You feel _everything_.) It just takes longer before you keel over. And being stubborn, of course I'm going to hold on to the very last moment I can.

And pain...pain is...an insidious thing.

It's slippery. It shifts and mutates from moment to moment, from day to day. It never quite seems to be the same. And if you asked me at that moment, I'd have said that the dislocated knee was far worse than the broken arm, even though I could see that the arm was a bad break (at the very least an open fracture, which was obvious from the bone poking through the skin). The only reason I didn't throw up when looking at it was because I had the feeling that would hurt. A lot. Seeing as they'd probably broken a few ribs before they did the arm thing. (I've thrown up with broken ribs before, and it ranks right up there on my list of Things Not To Do Again.)

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam started. "This is the first time you mentioned the ribs."

"Is it?" Sheppard blinked. "To be fair, Cam, I have a veritable laundry list of injuries. It's a bit hard to keep track of what ones happened when and where. But for the record, I think the ribs happened when that A'tar dude was beating me up." (Warming him up for the real session to come.)

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

So. What are we up to? Concussion, assorted bruises and scrapes, ribs, left arm, and right knee. Yeah. That sounds about right.

And I had to make a split-second decision whether to pretend to break or to keep going.

For what it's worth, I chose the first option. (Door number 1.) Not that I could do it right away, of course. These two were idiots, but even these two would catch on if I just crumbled without warning. As much as this was going to hurt, I had to lay the ground-work (I had to build up to it, so to speak).

Which meant one more bone. (_Yay. Go me._)

In the meantime...it was time to lay it on thick.

I started letting myself express how much it hurt. You know, groaning, panting, that sort of thing. I even promised myself I'd let myself scream on the next one.

It wasn't hard, really. The tiniest shift gave me the greatest...inspiration for my performance. So in some ways, that chair they had me in was a blessing in disguise. It kept me very still. In hindsight, it's probably what helped me save my leg as much as I did.

You know how I commented earlier how some things you remember and other things you don't? Well, I was so focused on the performance (and the pain, because by god that knee _hurt_) that the next thing I can recall is that the two heavies were backing off.

Not by much, but enough to give me a little breathing room and to let me finally hear what must have startled them as well.

Now, the best sound I have ever heard was the sound of my team coming to the rescue. Ronon's blaster, Teyla's stick - although she tends to favor the P90 on high-risk missions - and even Rodney's dodgy aim and endless chatter. Though he's a bit more silent these days. Mind you, his aim's only bad when he tries to shoot while holding his tablet or scanner, which _I swear_ is welded to his arm, and-

-and I'm definitely rambling, aren't I?

That's because...it didn't happen that way. (Although I think by that point I was hallucinating. As much as from dehydration as from the pain.)

For all their idiocy (I mean, who does the torturing thing anyway?), the two heavies were smart. Too smart. They actually remind me of...yeah, well, that's another story. Anyway, so they knew what they were doing (if not how to do it). Which is why they didn't run, which would've been the logical course, but kept on doing what they were doing. Just enough to keep me in constant pain, but never enough to kill me. Or, you know, let me go unconscious.

No, I had the distinct _pleasure_ of being awake for the whole thing.

I guess, all things considered, I've been through worse than the time I spent with those two. But still...torture is torture. (And it's always surprising what you can live through.)

* * *

><p><strong>ELSEWHERE<strong>

One of those watching leaned forward and swore. "He's one of _his_, isn't he?"

There was no answer. But then, there never would be.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Sheppard rubbed his forehead. Damn his aching body, he was losing his focus on what he could and couldn't say. "Did the docs give you any stuff I could take if this went too long?"

"Uh, yeah actually. Everything from a long release Morphine patch all the way down to Tylenol." Cam looked at the options and considered it. "So. Will Tylenol be enough, or do you want something a little stronger?"

Yeah. _No_. He might be admitting to pain, but _no way_ was he admitting to needing strong pain pills. "Tylenol's perfect. I just need something to take the edge off." He took the tablets and swallowed them dry. "Thanks, Cam."

* * *

><p>###<p>

###

**END PART 3**


	4. Compound

Chp. Summary: Lines in the sand.

Note: Thanks to midnighta for the awesome beta, again. Also, stupid migraines and totally stupid meds.

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* * *

><p><em><strong>FRACTURE POINTS<strong>_

_**Part 4: Compound**_

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

So...what really happened was...not pretty. (Well, it was definitely _messy_. Does that count?) I guess that's why I keep avoiding it. There's a saying from somewhere that it's always darkest before the dawn. Yeah, well, I so totally get that.

Looking back, I guess that those two had a pretty good idea of what was happening, or going to happen. Anyone with half a brain (or was that half a brain between them?) would've run when we first started hearing the explosions, or at least when we first started seeing evidence of what was to come. But not these two. No. Not these two idiots. They _stayed_.

Ok, so to be fair, I don't really know if they stayed because they were under orders or if they really were that stupid. (Okay, so they probably _were_ that stupid.) I guess now I'll never know.

What I _do_ know is that they wanted to get some last good hits into me before _it_ happened. (I'll get to _it_ in a bit.)

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

"Actually, I have another question."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you call those two, well, idiots? Surely you could've come up with better names?" It was a basic technique, after all, to pick out a prominent feature of someone and use it to identify them - if only to make writing the future report easier (or, as the case may be, to make the debrief easier to handle).

The question made Sheppard pause in his flow, in what he's mentally calling the Epic Info Dump From Hell. (Mainly for two reasons. One, it has a nice ring to it, and secondly, what happened on MKR-389 is as close to hell as he wants to come in this life.) (There are other reasons, but they're classified.) "Uh... Okay, so I had other names at the time. It's what happened later that makes _Idiot_ so appropriate."

"And..."

"I'm getting there. This is a tale better told chronologically." (Better for his mental health, at least.) (Because there's no way he's telling parts of this any more than once, so chronological it is.)

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

Have I mentioned before their interrogation technique? It wasn't all that different from A'tar's, really, just with harder hitting, more permanent damage. You know, question, reply, break a bone - change it around a little for variety. The usual.

And so I'd change my replies to keep it interesting. No. Cursing. Silence. Given that I was building up to a 'break', I was also starting to favor more the cursing and panting. (And sweating. Don't forget the sweating.)

But nothing could've prepared me for what they had planned next. I don't know if they did it because they had any idea how important those bones were, or they were just that sadistic...or idiotically clever. Because even idiots can stumble across a good idea every now and then, and they _were_ rather systematic in what they were doing. I mean, looking at it objectively, they were quite clearly slowly disabling my ability to fight back when I finally got out of that damn chair.

Unfortunately for them, I had some lines I didn't like crossing.

So they dragged me over them anyway, kicking and screaming all the way. Literally.

I think I said earlier something about how I couldn't move, but that they could move me, or at least a limb if they wanted. And that's how they did my hands.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

"Like the arm."

"Yeah. Except where it wasn't." Sheppard shifted in the chair (and refused to look in the camera he _knew_ was hidden in the corner of the room). On the one hand, he was sitting on a generic government chair, and he was as stiff as all hell. On the other, well, he knew he was lucky to be feeling this much through the painkillers the docs (and Cam, good old Cam) kept feeding him. Still, if this kept up much longer, he was going to have to get up and walk, and he was _so_ not looking forward to it. At all. (The getting up bit, not the walking bit.)

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

I'm pretty sure they said something threatening or asked me yet another question, but I kinda lost that in the background haze when they moved my arm. The _broken_ arm. That's when I found out exactly how bad they'd broken it. (Not that there's any such thing as a _good_ break, but still...)

So. Remember how I promised myself that I'd scream on the next bone? So I could fake giving in?

Turned out that it wasn't so hard. To let myself scream, that is. And that was _before_ they got to the breaking bone part. Just them moving the broken arm was enough for that.

So...this whole 'faking it' thing...was probably going to be easier than I'd ever thought. (Probably because there wasn't going to be as much faking as I'd expected, but that's another story.)

At first I thought they were just going to, uh, 'play' with the break, you know, given that I'd already shown that it was the first thing they'd done that had gotten a response from me. I didn't actually realize what they were planning to do until they moved the other arm as well so that my hands were right next to each other and then grabbed some...I don't know, looked like a bat or something from somewhere. I couldn't quite see it, but I knew right away what they were going to do.

Especially after they did a few false swings to 'tease' me.

In some ways, I immediately knew that what they'd already done was going to be nothing compared to this.

_Not my hands. Please, God, not my hands._

To this day, I don't know if I said that to myself or aloud. Either way, they didn't stop. Because there really wasn't anything I could do to stop them. That had already been made abundantly clear to me from the moment I'd landed in this damn hostage situation.

The only saving grace I had was that damn chair. I hadn't made a deliberate movement in so long that the idiots kind of forgot I could, but one of the few things I _could_ move was my wrists. I had just enough time to flick my left hand over my right before the bat-thing descended for real.

This time I made sure I cried out.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

Cam looked up from where he'd been looking (that is, trying hard not to stare and failing) at the complicated splints on Sheppard's hands. "I guess then this would've been your line in the sand." His own hands were cramping from writing so much (why on earth did _they_ insist on _hard-copy_ instead of electronic?), but given the subject matter he figured it'd be totally insensitive to shake them out.

"Well, _yeah_. Absolutely nothing is worth losing my gun hand over," the other pilot replied, using a casual air as a cover for the serious undertone. "I'm sure I could'a come up with _something_ to satisfy them. Not that I had much of a chance to try."

Cam just nodded and said nothing. Because they both knew the unwritten code drummed into them from SERE: _you have to stay __alive__ to escape_. Or as their instructor had once wryly put it, _you want to be able to shoot the idiots at the end of the day_.

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<strong>

The end result was that my left hand was bloodied and rather useless, and the right hopefully only _looked_ that way. Small mercies, and all that. It just looked pretty damn awful.

Which was my cue.

So, I started the whole fake out thing. I started smashing together phrases like, "okay okay" and "I'll talk" with "my hands, my hands," and "no more".

The heavies started bombarding me with questions, like A'tar had. "What were the Lao's plans?" "How many people are involved?" "What were the Lao's targets?"

I answered from old mission-gone-wrong files. MP8-391, or as Rodney calls it, Escape From Big Cat Planet. M4P-842. The Bug Thing. M1B-129. Wraith Hallucination Planet. M1L-439. Planet Waterfall. And that was just for starters.

Just because I had to do this didn't mean I couldn't have fun with it.

It didn't last long, though. Not because they didn't believe me or because I ran out of material. (Honestly. What does it say about my life that I had enough to keep going for _hours_?) No, the reason I stopped was because...it got messy very quickly.

I'd say it was another thing we missed, but really, there was no missing _this_.

It was about that stage that we got the clearest sign yet of what was to come. I say 'clearest sign yet', because it was pretty hard to miss the not-so-distant crack-boom of an explosion and the subsequent chunk of ceiling that came crashing down _right beside me_. (I was just glad it didn't fall _on_ me.) (And I said '_about_ that stage' because my time sense gets a little fuzzy around here, for soon to be obvious reasons.)

We all had a look at it. Well, okay, so they went _over_ to look at it and I just turned my head (only because it was the only part of me I _could_ move at that stage, but that's beside the point). In hindsight, I probably did the safer thing. (I mean, if the roof starts to collapse, and yeah ok the natural inclination is to look, but still, do you go _towards_ it or _away_?) (Like I keep saying, idiots.)

We had a moment then that was like the silence before lightning and thunder hits. All around you. It was that kind of feeling of crackling tension. (And you instantly know what's coming is going to be _bad_.)

The tension broke when the rest of the ceiling caved in. Except for around where I was, strangely enough. (Or not so strangely, as it turned out.)

I closed my eyes as I heard the two heavies' screams get cut short rather drastically. (Thuds of falling rocks will do that.) There are some things I totally did not need to see, and that ranked right up there with them.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>

This time it was Sheppard who paused in the account. "I know what you're going to ask. How sure am I, since I never did see the bodies." And if there was one thing there was a rule about in the SGC, it was to never be sure someone was dead unless there was a body, and even then you'd Check Double-Check and Verify.

Cam at least had the grace to look guilty. "Well, it _was_ on my mind."

"I have eyewitnesses."

"How many?" Because numbers totally mattered.

"Only about a hundred. Does that count?"

Mitchell coughed and did a mental double-take. "Right. Well..." He reached for the thick file folder for the first time in this entire process and rapidly flipped through it. "Uh...that's not mentioned in the reports I have."

"Of course not. That's because the building chose that moment to collapse on me as well."

* * *

><p>###<p>

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_**END PART 4**_


	5. Open

Chp. Summary: The sounds of freedom.

Notes: This was supposed to be the last chapter. Was. Sheppard's apparently feeling chatty.

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* * *

><p><em><strong>FRACTURE POINTS<strong>_

_**Part 5: Open**_

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<br>**First off, I should say that part of what follows is not completely from my own personal perspective or knowledge. (Mostly because I was unconscious or in shock for most of it.) It's based on what other people have told me and I'm simply including it for...a more rounded picture.

So. I guess this part starts back when Rodney got stabbed, and I told Teyla and Ronon to get him back home, to Atlantis. I still don't know how but they got back with the jumper I'd left behind. (To be frank, I'd expected them to get back via the secondary planetary gate, that is, on foot.) So. I don't know if Rodney was _compos mentis_ enough to pilot, or Ronon and Teyla had to convince the jumper that he was. (No one's told me how they managed it despite my many attempts at asking. Nor have they let me see the jumper in question.) (I think they're afraid of what I'll do when I find out what they did...)

The first thing they did on getting back to Atlantis was to get Rodney to a medical team. SOP-sorta-thing.

The second thing they did was getting the ball rolling on a rescue team. Also SOP.

Total turn-around time from arrival in Atlantis to departure of the rescue team would've been about, oh, fifteen minutes. (Allowing time for multiple debriefs, a quick infirmary check, rounding up the primary rescue team with the backup battalion-on-duty, and getting all that loaded on jumpers... Our record in drills is 12 minutes 48 seconds, but who's counting?)

I didn't know about all that at the time, of course. (I suspected, because I knew how well I'd trained my people, but I didn't _know_.) (And there's a vast chasm between knowing and _knowing_.)

The first thing I _knew_ was that I was waking up somewhere dark and cramped. (Well, okay, the darkness came first and the cramped part came second.) The darkness was...rather complete, at first. (Like being dumped in a vat of the stuff, was actually my first thought.) So then I decided to see if I could move. (Which was where the cramped part came in.)

Big mistake.

Toes, yeah, they were doable. Fingers, not so much. Great way to remind myself exactly how broken I was, and not just from the ceiling thing. I actually remember being surprised that I wasn't injured more than I was before. Oh, sure, cramped beyond belief, but it didn't seem like I was hurting anywhere _extra_. (Although, I was also having sense memories of other times I'd been buried alive, the last time being the most prominent. Ronon. Dreadlocks. Dust. Fire. All around me and in my side.) (So I wasn't all that sure about what was worse and what wasn't.)

Of course, that could just be the adrenaline speaking.

From what I could tell, I was still lying in that chair they'd tied me to, but the rocks had forced it back, so I was now in something of a semi-inclined position. Still tied up, with chunks of very heavy ceiling all over me, but maybe somewhat comfortable...if you tilted your head and squinted. And I had my very own pocket of air, and light was getting down to me somehow, so I couldn't be too far down from the surface, right?

And hey, I was alone. For the first time in way too long.

The "alone" thing didn't last.

I'm not sure how long it was until I heard voices. It only seemed a short while, but then again it was just me there. It could've been longer, because there was no one to tell me if I passed out for a bit, you know? And my time sense was all sorts of fuzzy.

All I could do was _wait_. Wait to see if they would come closer, stay where they were, or leave. (Which was "fun" on all sorts of levels.) For the record, my money was on the coming closer option. It's stupid, but it's also simple curiosity at work. People can never resist a good mystery. And I guess a bunch of rubble where once there'd been _something_ was as good a mystery as any. (Of course, the buncha rubble is only a mystery to you...as long as you're not the _cause _of said mystery, because then there is no mystery and nothing to investigate.) (On the other hand, there's always the old "let's look at what I did factor," which has caught _so many_ criminals red-handed.)

So, yes, I have no real idea how long it was until it sounded like they were right above me.

_Yay. This is gonna hurt._ Gathering what strength I could, I yelled out to them. And I was right. It did hurt. It's how I found out I was a lot more injured than I'd thought.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<br>**"But I thought you said most of your injuries came while you were a hostage."

"They did." He gave a one-arm shrug, which really was the best he could do. "I was still, technically, a hostage right at that moment. I was still in that stupid chair, wasn't I?" So therefore, still a hostage/captive. Q.E.D.

"That's splitting straws."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow for that. "Is it?" (This whole inquiry thing was about "split straws" in his opinion. But airing that opinion wouldn't get him very far, would it?)

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<br>**From the sounds of it, they were surprised to hear me. (To hear _anyone_.)

So the people attached to the voices did what anyone would do in this sort of situation. They started trying to dig me out.

I found out quite a few things in the process, listening to the conversations. (It's amazing what people will say when they think you're too "out of it" to hear.)

1. Not my team.  
>2. They were Lao'tians.<br>3. More to the point, they were a Lao'tian scouting team who'd been looking for the Ahm'lin rebel hideout because of what had happened at those "negotiations" earlier.  
>4. And having found said hideout, they'd decided to blow it up.<br>5. It wasn't the first time the Ahm'lin have taken "hostages". It was just the first time they'd found the hideout in time to do anything about it.  
>6. Because no one survives being an Ahm'lin hostage. No one. They find the bodies a day later, almost every bone broken.<p>

From that, it was easy to figure out a few things.

1. I was far luckier than I'd thought.  
>2. They were the ones responsible for my "escape" from the two idiots.<br>3. Maybe that was why relatively less rubble and debris fell on me compared to said idiots.  
>4. They might've blown up the building, but that didn't mean they were used to...what would you call this? The aftermath of an explosion. Or at least, the part where you look for survivors.<br>5. One thing they're _not_ is combat engineers. I had more debris fall on me as they "dug me out" than in the initial collapse.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<br>**"Really? You figured it out like that?"

"Well, yeah. And then I burnt the list into my memories so I'd remember them all for the debrief. It's easier than trying to tell you the thousands of little things they did that tipped me off."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<br>**I should probably rewind a bit here to explain something. In the process of digging me out of the rubble, they found the chair. That is, they had to get me _out _of the chair first. Now, being of this...pulley and weight construction, it was another thing that was "fun" on all sorts of levels.

Because when the ceiling collapsed on me, it also fell on the weights system. Some of them snapped off – which wasn't really relevant considering I had a ceiling sitting on top of me – and others...well...other weights were pushed further down by the rocks. Now _that_ was a problem.

It meant that parts of me were getting rather restricted blood-flow, with all the associated complications. I didn't know it, but we were on something of a clock, and not just because I was heading into shock. (Which probably explains why they were focusing on clearing around my limbs, once they traced everything back to that stupid weight system.)

It seemed like they fussed around for ages over that chair. What things to cut to make it easier for me, and what they shouldn't cut because that would set off a rock-slide or impact on another weight or...well, you get the idea. What I mainly remember was that I was cold.

Like I said, I was heading into shock.

The only surprising thing was that I hadn't started the shock-thing earlier.

I can still remember that almost-perfect moment when the Lao's cleared the rocks around my head, (the gentle brush of a hand against my cheek, the dust in the air, the head that obscured the sun for a moment until they moved,) and I finally could see the sunlight again in...I don't know how long. (Too long.) So warm. And _bright_. Yeah. Okay. Obviously the _Concussion From Hell_ was playing havoc with my senses. Obviously some rock had come a little closer than I'd thought and I'd hit my head (again). That was, what, head hit number four? Or five? Had I lost count?

Whatever.

The important thing was that the light was so intense, so _bright_, that I couldn't handle it. I had to keep my eyes shut, and even that at times felt like too much. It was either that or throw up (repeatedly) and that was definitely _not _on my To Do List for today.

But as good as that was, that doesn't even _compare_ to when they finally lifted me out. Which took some doing, I admit. Some hairy moments with some scarily sharp knives to cut the ropes. Their totally awesome human brigade to move the rocks and weights. And the god-awful _pain_ of the maneuver to get the blanket under me so they could lift me properly.

And then...the only way left to go was _up_.

It was...a beautiful moment.

That was when I thought that, yeah, maybe now I was free. And _that_ was when I finally heard the sweet sound of a puddlejumper. My team was _coming_.

Now _that_ was the sound of freedom.

* * *

><p>###<p>

**END PART 5**


	6. Shattered

**Chp. Summary:** They have to find all the broken parts to make it whole again.

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* * *

><p><em><strong>FRACTURE POINTS<strong>_

_**PART 6: Shattered**_

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<br>**"So, I gather your team found you about then?"

"Yeah. I'd been pulled from the rubble, but I was still fairly close by." No one had been game to move him far. Not with his injuries and their level of technology. (At least, it might just be because they were a scouting team, but the Lao's had mainly hands, buckets, blankets, and ropes to use in his rescue. Enough said.)

"So...you were a hostage all told for..."

"I...don't know, really. I guess...a few hours. Maybe more. Maybe less. My time sense got real fuzzy in parts."

"And your team took how long to find you after leaving Atlantis?"

"I think that was in their reports, actually." Another trap dodged. They were probably trying to see if his team did something wrong in his retrieval.

"So why so long? Aren't Ancient sensors supposed to be powerful?"

Or maybe not. Time for a jargon dump. "Apparently there was some sort of chemical structure in the mineral surrounding the hideout that interfered with the sensors. It was broken when the roof collapsed, but there were still pieces of it all over the place and, more importantly, on top of me. They really only got a clear picture of the signal from my sub-cu when I was above ground and clear of the rubble. Due to the intricacies of the search grid the jumpers were on, it took some time both for it to register and then for them to reach me."

Cam nodded knowingly. It wouldn't be the first time they'd lost track of someone because they were underground or hidden by some sort of mineral. Sub-cu's were a great invention, but as they were finding, there were situations (which the SG teams seemed to get into with startling regularity) that they just _didn't work_. (Really, emerging Earth tech should just be given to SG teams for the field tests. They'd soon find out how practical things were in real-world situations.)

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<br>**Now, I think I said earlier that the best sounds I've ever heard are those made by my team coming to the rescue.

The first thing I heard was the jumper. The Ancient propulsion system is a rather distinctive noise. (Kind of like a pulsing-bladerunner-noise...but not. It's hard to describe unless you hear it.)

The second thing I heard was their voices. (And that was when I finally relaxed.) Talking to each other, to the Lao'tians, and then when they saw me. Yeah. None of us expected me to come out of the mission uninjured after it turned into a hostage extraction live exercise, but I don't think any of us expected it to be as bad as it was.

So of course I made light of it. Standard bad field humor thing. I squinted up at them and grinned. "What took you so long?"

So there you have it. My team pretty much found me when I was already out of the rubble, but it was rather apparent where I'd been and who'd got me out. (Also, I have this vague memory of Ronon telling me with great relish what the Lao's did to the two idiot's' bodies...which I'm still trying to suppress.) (Like I said, I was the last in a long line of 'hostages'...or murder victims. I just happened to be the first to escape the trap alive.)

Seeing as it was pretty clear at that point that I was going to be the only survivor of the explosion and that I now had my own people to take care of me, the Lao's left the scene. Rather pragmatic people, the Lao'tians.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>  
>Cam froze in the middle of a word, the phrasing catching his attention. "What do you mean, you were <em>going to be the only survivor<em>?"

"Just that. I was the only one they rescued."

"You mean there were others alive when they found you..." he said flatly. _And they...no, the _Lao's_...didn't...help them... _It was a hard concept for his brain to wrap around.

John tilted his head. "How shall I say this... Even as injured as I was, they said I was the one most likely to survive. So they did what they could to get me out. Like I said, they're a pragmatic people." But then, most people in Pegasus were like that.

"Sounds like you approve of that."

"I don't. I just understand the mindset. It's a Pegasus thing."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<br>**Anyway, with it now just me and my people, we could uncloak the jumper, bring it as near as possible. Make it easier for transport.

Not that I was going far without a proper stretcher and backboard. I mean, blankets were all well and good for an immediate short-term solution, but there was _no way_ I was gonna be carted over the rubble-strewn field in just a blanket. (For one, it's undignified. A man's gotta have some respect, you know?) (And second, a blanket's not exactly stable.) (And also, have you ever _tried_ to carry someone using a blanket? It's damn hard, and I had no desire to be on the receiving end of that. Not when alternatives were available.)

Getting _on_ the stretcher was about as much fun as it had been to get on the blanket. Which wasn't much. Lots of poking and rolling. (While I did my best to keep the screaming to the minimum.) (I'd already hit my screaming quota once today, I had no desire to revisit it again. Although trying to move anything, as broken as I was, made it awful difficult not to do just that.)

Thank goodness for the joys of morphine and battlefield doses.

What I remember next comes in bits and pieces. Flashes of memory through the drugs, that sort of thing. (Good drugs, but sometimes not good enough.)

Entering the jumper (and feeling it welcome me).

Through the stargate (to Atlantis. Home.)

Corridor. Endless corridor. And someone jostles the gurney. (_Don't do that again._) (Hoping that wasn't me screaming...)

_Pain_. Cold hands. No clothing. Infirmary. _Yay..._

From there, the clearest memory I have is waking up to see Keller's face. (Waking up? I was asleep?) It started all the endless rounds of wake-me-up-from-one-surgery-so-we-can-do-another. The docs were pretty quick to tell me I was in for some quality time with them. But then, I'd already known that from the moment that the two idiots had started going hard on me.

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<br>**John shifted in the chair once more. "So, I guess here I should add the prognosis, right?"

Cam coughed and blinked. As far as he knew, the doctors were waiting to tell Sheppard after this...debriefing. But trust Sheppard to get ahead of the curve. "Yeah, um, sure, if you, uh, know."

The Colonel just snorted. (He would've rolled his eyes, but, well, concussion victim here.) "Cam, this isn't exactly my first rodeo, so to speak. I'm pretty sure I know what they're going to tell me _and_ how well I'll recover."

"Ain't that the truth," he muttered to himself. He cleared his throat, flipped to a new page, and said in a louder voice, "Ok then, I'm ready."

"Most of the breaks were fairly clean, as far as it could be, so I'm guessing 6 weeks. Except for the concussion, arm, and knee. The concussion is a wait-and-see thing because of all the hits I took. The arm was worse because it's an open compound fracture, so they had to go and pin it...probably 6 to 8 weeks there, depending on the swelling. As for the knee, that was worse because of the delay in treatment, so about 2 months, maybe less if I can keep off it and rest as much as I can. Add to that rehab and PT, because goodness knows the docs are fond of those two words, and I'll be back in action in 3 months." He paused a moment. "Pending the outcome of this inquiry thing I'm not supposed to know about."

This time Cam was _sure_ his poker face was perfect. After all, he'd had a career perfecting it, and you don't get to be a Colonel without having a good one. "What inquiry?"

"The very fact you didn't deny it outright tells me that there is one."

Cam lowered his lids to cover his glare. Now _there_ was The Colonel that the Atlantians both loved and feared. (And at this moment, he himself feared too.) Whichever way he went from here, he was going to get in trouble. If he denied it, he lied. If he confirmed it, he went against orders. "I...can't comment."

"Yeah. Is what I figured." Sheppard shrugged fatalistically.

"You mean..." Was he...was he actually _admitting guilt_? After this incredible performance, the sheer _endurance_, was he saying that he knew there'd be an inquiry because of what he did...wrong?

"No." Sheppard stared back half-lidded. "But if one of your soldiers came back like I did, leaving behind a planet in the state it was, wouldn't you investigate?"

Oh. "Well, yeah."

"Q.E.D."

* * *

><p><strong>BEFORE<br>**So. I had a minimum of three months of infirmary time to look forward to. (Enforced bed rest, yay. Go me.)

But that's the way life treats us sometimes. Sometimes you come out on top...and sometimes you don't.

I found that out about, oh, a week and a half in, I think it was. After I was through most of the surgeries I needed and had healed enough that they'd finally dialed down the drugs part-way, so at least I could _think_ and hold reasonably lucid conversations.

It was the first time I remembered seeing Woolsey, but he told me he'd been to see me numerous times. (And he'd talked to me each time too.) (Stupid drugs.) As base administrator, he felt it was his duty to tell me the outcome of the mission to MKR-389. (His words, not mine.) (I would have used 'fallout', not 'outcome'.)

Apparently, the reason the Ahm'lin had interfered in the negotiations was, as I'd suspected, because they saw the presence of offworlders as proof of Lao'tian superiority, prejudice, whatever. They thought the negotiations were actually to discuss fabled plan to destroy them (as if we were no more than mercenaries for hire) - hence the whole hostage thing. As for the Lao'tians, well, the hostage thing was _their_ tipping point. The Big Costar dude was convinced that because I'd been so quick to offer myself up instead of him, I had conspired with the Ahm'lin to make it happen that way. (Paranoid, much?) Hence the scouting team to find the Ahm'lin hideout.

And of course, with a collapsed building and no offworlders to show for it (because we had our own people to save, namely me and Rodney), the Ahm'lin and Lao'tian had reverted to type: they were blaming each other and dragging their people along with them. In other words, in the space of a few days, the planet had descended into civil war.

So there you have it. It was a bit of a convoluted mess, but the basic gist was that both sides had used my team as the catalyst (or excuse) for the escalation of their little civil war, and I'd like to think that we paid just as high a price for it as the civilians of MKR-389.

(I know I certainly did.)

* * *

><p><strong>AFTER<strong>  
>Cam nodded and scribbled a few final notes. "On that topic, have you heard how Rodney's doing?"<p>

"The docs told me that the knife missed his spleen by a whisker. The docs kept him for, like, a week anyway to make sure he'd be okay." He shrugged. "All I really know is that he was getting out of the infirmary as they were putting me into surgery for the third time or so. Teyla and Ronon said they'd had a helluva time keeping him in his room to rest." (Especially as he kept coming back to the infirmary to 'keep watch' or visit the labs.)

Cam smiled. "Good ol' Rodney."

Sheppard smiled back. "Yeah. He's a good friend." He cleared his throat and glanced at his watch for the first time. "Is there anything else? I've got a PT appointment in about half-an-hour I can't afford to miss. That is, if we're still keeping things above board."

"Just a few things left. I noticed during the briefing, you paused when you discussed your training." Cam paused. It wasn't something he particularly cared to know himself, but it would stand out in the transcripts, so it had to be cleared up. "Care to elaborate?"

Sheppard stared. And said nothing.

"Right." Cam sighed and mentally connected up a few dots that he (probably rather stupidly) hadn't before. "I'm going to put down Black Ops. That'll just have to be enough."

"Is there anything else?" The firm tone implied that there'd not be - or if there was, it'd better be damn important.

Cam cleared his throat and gripped his pen. (When did he lose control of this 'debrief' thing anyway?) "Just one last thing. There's been some suggestion that you...could have timed the 'break' better to limit your injuries. Do you have anything to say to that?"

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Oh please, who came up with that question? I bet it was someone who's never been on the front-lines," he shot back. "Of _course_ I'd much rather have faked them out before they did my hands. Or my knee, for that matter. But it wasn't like they gave me an itinerary of the torture so I'd know in advance how to time things. I worked with what I had at the time."

"And hindsight is a bitch." Usually it was the bitch of the IOA and the faceless men running the show, but neither of them were going to say that. Not here. Not now.

"That too." Sheppard pushed the chair back. "Now, if that's all..." He made his way to his feet. Which, really, was far easier to _say_ than it was to _do_. He had one braced knee and both hands only worked somewhat well because they were still in articulated splints. It was, after all, only a month out of MKR-389. And so he used a rolling walker he could rest his arms in. (Actually he was still supposed to be in a wheelchair.) (But 1) he was stubborn that way; 2) a condition of attending this inquiry thing was that he be relatively mobile; and 3) he wanted this inquiry-thing over and _done with_ so he could get on with the business of healing.)

Cam sat in his chair and watched as Sheppard awkwardly walked (okay, so it was more like a hobbling shuffle) to the door. Firstly, on a personal level, he admired the determination in every step. Secondly, the Atlantian Colonel had earned the right of him waiting until there was the extra support of the door. Just in case.

"Oh by the way, Colonel," Cam called out at the right moment, as if it was no more than an afterthought (which it so wasn't), "what are you going to do about MKR-389?"

"Oh, that." Sheppard turned back at the door, holding on to the doorframe with his good hand to make it back around. "I'll send Ronon and Teyla back to collect on the harvest agreement, with Charlie Company for manpower." The 'and backup' was as obvious as it was unspoken.

"On foot?"

Sheppard grinned, an easy smile beneath hardened eyes. "Of course. Even if I have to redial to get them all through."

Cam let out a low whistle. The boots on the ground of over 200 Marines was nothing to sneeze at. If nothing else, it'd make for an impressive sight. (Which was, of course, the whole point to the exercise.) But seeing as he'd volunteered to play the role of devil's advocate today... "But what about the civil war?"

"That's what Charlie Company is for. You need to have peace to collect a harvest, don't you?"

And then he was out the door and gone.

* * *

><p><strong>ELSEWHERE<br>**The faceless men sat back in their chairs.

Silence descended on the room like a blanket, heavy, warm, thick, cloying.

"Well," one of them finally said, an indefinite time later, "I hope that answers your questions."

"It does. No way in _hell_ am I going after one of _his_." He got up and walked out without looking back.

The third, who'd been silent up until now, quietly stood and dusted off his outfit. "We'll be clearing him of all charges. The note will be in your inbox tomorrow." With that, everyone else left the room.

The first speaker stood, and after a thoughtful moment, reached out and flicked off the monitors, sending the room into darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>END OF STORY<strong>

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**Extra notes:**

Prompt in full:

_action/adventure, character studies, new alien cultures, humor, slice of life, and whump…. Lots of whump.  
>In detail: Calling on an ally proves dangerous, when the team walks into a revolution and the rebels take Sheppard hostage, demanding Atlantis' help in overthrowing the government. Who is really the bad guy, the government or the rebels?<br>Requested characters: In addition to Sheppard, I like Rodney, Ronon, Lorne, Zelenka, Beckett, Sam Carter or Woolsey. Having Cam Mitchell in a story with Sheppard would be nice._

I think I got most of it, although I'm hazy on certain parts, and not all the characters got speaking lines - because Cam kept stealing them, the 'bad guy' role kept shifting, and Sheppard was downright _chatty_ at parts. o_O Other than that, I hope it satisfies, and I had a blast writing it. :)


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